


All I Wanted (Was One Last Goodbye)

by StarlightAfterAStorm



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, a little swearing, but kind of hopeful?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 10:52:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3131852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightAfterAStorm/pseuds/StarlightAfterAStorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Logan surprises Veronica with a holiday visit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All I Wanted (Was One Last Goodbye)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ELSchaaf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ELSchaaf/gifts).



> For the wonderful Elschaaf. I know you've been waiting for it. Sorry it was a little late! You prompted "Holiday reunion" and "Logan surprises Veronica with a holiday visit". Probably wasn't what you were expected but I do hope you like it!

  _This is a terrible idea._

That’s what Logan keeps telling himself as he drives across the state to visit his ex-girlfriend. 

_What the hell are you thinking? She’s gonna shut her door in your face._

But he needs to see her just one last time. 

It took cashing in a ton of favors with Mac and semi-bribing Wallace to get Veronica’s dorm and room info but he did and now he’s here. 

_Roble Dorm Room M224._

Logan parks at the front of the school and realizes he has no fucking clue where the dorm actually is. But he’s here. On the same campus as Veronica Mars. 

It’s the closest he’s been to her in almost 4 years and he’s overwhelmed by it. The little box in his pocket, wrapped with pretty green paper and a red bow, feels like it’s a lead weight. He can’t take his mind off of it. 

Quickly shaking himself to get his head together, Logan snags a passerby he assumes is a student.

“Hey, uh, do you know where Roble dorm is?”

“Roble? Yeah. Uhmmmm. Let’s see. It’s kind of diagonal… that way?”

The girl points vaguely north-ish. 

“So if you follow the quad and head up and right, and then keep going, following the street, and go past the sunken park with the fountains, you’ll come to a street corner that leads into the Papua New Guinea Sculpture garden. Go through the garden and you’ll be right there.”

Logan bites down a remark asking if she has any white rabbits he can follow, but he plasters a smile on his face instead. Maybe if he plays nice, Karma won’t be a bitch to him and slam a door in his face. 

“Thanks.”

“Uh-huh!” 

She skips away. 

Literally skips away and Logan’s mouth opens and closes with wasted opportunity. 

_Not important. Keep going. She said… this way?_

It takes him another half hour and 3 more people he stopped to ask directions, but Logan finally makes it to the dorm. He wants to knock his own head in when he sees a parking lot right in front of it with plenty of open spaces. 

Now comes the problem of actually getting in. 

He wonders just how much of a stalker will he look like if he just… _loiters_ outside waiting for someone to use their card so he can sneak in.

Luckily a dark haired girl walks past him and swipes her card, leaving it open for him to walk through.

“Thanks.”

She smiles.

“No probs.”

And walks away. 

Briefly Logan contemplates just how lax Stanford security must be if students are just letting people in without asking if they live there or not. Wasn’t there something about a girl who impersonated a Stanford student without actually being a Stanford student for like a year or something? Does it bother Veronica’s finely tuned sense of justice that anyone and everyone could possibly sneak in?

The girl keeps walking and Logan hurries to catch up with her. 

“Hey! Wait. Do you know where room M224 is?”

“Oh, yeah dude. That’s my room. You looking for Veronica?”

She gives him a very long once over.

“You look kind of familiar. Were we in PWR together or something? No? You in a study group with Veronica? Her Legal Ethics? Cuz I know she was complaining about how she needed to find a study partner for that class before the final. It sounds brutal.” 

She keeps up a steady stream of info that Logan doesn’t really understand but devours anyway because _it’s information about Veronic_ a as they wait for the elevator. He’s more than a little amused she’s taking a legal ethics class with how fast and loose she’d played with the legal system in Neptune. 

“Wait, question. Why are we waiting for an elevator when there are stairs?”

“Dude, I’m not tryna take any stairs after I’ve been in class all day. Plus, the elevator is so convenient. It opens up right next to our room.”

The elevator door opens up in front of a restroom actually. However, around the corner from that is their actual room and Logan has no time to steel himself before the girl ( _shit I haven’t even asked her name or anything_ ) opens up the door with a,

“Haaaayyyyy girl. I got something for you.”

“Is it caffeine, because I’m dying here?”

Logan stands in the doorway, looking into the room, hearing Veronica’s voice, and seeing her for the first time in years. She’s sitting at her desk with her back turned, but he can see the sleekness of her no-nonsense ponytail and the curve of her neck. He can’t move his feet.

“Nope. Even better. I got you… a hot guy!”

The roommate turns Veronica around in her chair with a big smile on her face, obviously expecting Veronica to either play it off or continue the joke. Veronica’s eyes widen and she looks as electrified as Logan feels. He doesn’t know whether or not that’s good or bad. 

With Veronica, it’s always been both. 

“Logan.”

Letting out a huge breath, Logan can only smile in response.

The roommate looks like she’s realized the intensity of the situation she’s apparently been made audience to. 

“Wait, ‘Logan’? Your ‘Logan’? Ex-‘Logan’?” She looks closer at his face. “HOLY SHIT. You’re Logan ECHOLLS. Your ‘Logan’ is Logan Motherfucking Echolls?”

Veronica’s mouth twists into a grimace as Logan raises an eyebrow at her. He can feel a small twist of pride at knowing that Veronica talked about him, however non-specific she chose to make the story. 

“My full name is really Logan Jackass Echolls, but most people often get confused by that for some reason.”

“Don’t know why. It suits you perfectly.”

The roommate (Logan doesn’t give a fuck about her name at this point) looks between them, edging her way close to Logan and the door.

“Okaaay. I’m just gonna take my things and head on over to Jason’s for help with CS. Byyyeees.”

She sneaks past Logan who finally steps fully into the room and closes the door behind him. Veronica opens her mouth, closes it, takes a deep breath, and clears her throat a little. 

“What are you doing here?”

“I-“

What is he doing here? 

“I just… You never… I wanted to say…”

“I’ve never known you to have a problem with words before, Logan.”

But hasn’t he always had a problem with words with Veronica? Never getting it right with her. Always saying the right thing at the wrong time or the wrong thing at the right time or the right thing at the right time but only when it pissed her off. 

“I needed to say goodbye.”

“What?”

Whatever she thought he was going to say, it obviously wasn’t that.

“I just wanted to see you one last time, Veronica. And actually say goodbye this time.”

Because he never got a real goodbye with Lilly. Or with his mom. Not with Duncan. Sure as hell not with his dad. And Logan doesn’t really count the fight with the Russian kid at Hearst as a goodbye. Or the fight before when she kicked him out of her life. 

If he’s never going to see Veronica Mars after this, at least he’ll have the comfort of closure for once.

“Logan. I don’t understand. I mean- Why now? Did something happen?”

He nods slowly, grinning a little. 

“Yeah, actually. I’m joining the Navy. I’m flying out for Officers Training tomorrow morning.”

She scrunches her nose in confusion and the gesture is so familiar that he can’t help but let his grin grow as affection swells in his chest. There’s a sharp ache from looking at her, taking in all of the changes that have happened in 3 and a half years. She’s a little curvier, eyes a brighter blue than they were before, and her clothes are more muted, more blah. But they still make up one Veronica Mars and even if he ends up loving a thousand other girls after this, he knows a part of him will always love this one girl. 

“You’re dropping out of college. Your senior year. To enlist in the Navy?”

“No, I graduated early and I applied for an Officer position with the Aviation Division.”

“You graduated early?”

“Don’t sound so surprised now. I can actually be a good student when I apply myself.”

“No, I know that. I do. I did. It’s just… the Navy?”

“Yeah, the Navy.”

Veronica nods a little, taking it all in and Logan’s still waiting for the part where she kicks him out. Gives him a flippant goodbye and lets him go without another glance back like when she left Neptune without telling anyone but her dad. 

“So are you going to be Goose or Maverick?” 

“Well, I’d kind of like to end up like Goose, without the, y’know, airplane malfunction part and ejection at the end. But the whole, stable thing? Yeah, Goose had it pretty good.”

She seems surprised by his answer, pleased almost.

“Well, Maverick did end up straightening himself out by the end though. So who knows, maybe it’ll happen to you too.”

“Yeah, here’s hoping.”

They stand there, looking at each other and Logan wants so badly to reach out to her, make sure this is actually happening. 

“So. You’re leaving in the morning?”

“Yeah, my flight’s at 8. I just wanted to be able to say goodbye to you, for real. I mean, I know you probably didn’t want to see me ever again, but-“

“Logan, I-“

“No, it’s ok, y’know? Bygones.”

He smiles and he can see a smile of her own hiding in the corner of her mouth. He wants to coax it out. 

“I even brought you a bribe, just in case.”

He finally pulls out the box, pleased when he finds the bow squished only a little bit after being stuck in his pocket for over 12 hours. 

“Merry Christmas, Veronica.”

She hesitates only a second before reaching out for the box and he presses it into her hand. She bites her lip a little as she looks between him and the present. He laughs.

“It’s ok to open it. I know it’s not Christmas yet, but I’d like to see your reaction to it.”

Veronica looks up at him teasingly, shaking the box a little.

“A pony?”

He doesn’t answer, his grin getting wider. She sticks her tongue out at him like they’re 12 again and he feels oddly content at this moment. 

“They’re… earrings?”

“ _Magnifying glass_ earrings. I mean I heard around that you don’t really do the whole ‘teenage girl sleuth’ thing anymore, but I figured they were appropriate.”

She fingers the earrings a little sadly, tracing the little designs in the handles. Logan wonders how far she’s suppressed her innate urge to snoop.

He can’t imagine Veronica not being a PI. That one summer they’d been together and she’d tried being a normal girl with a normal job at the Java Hut, it had seemed wrong somehow. 

She looks up at him.

“Thank you, Logan. Now if I’m in the middle of some test and can’t read the letters, I can magnify them one by one.”

The soft smile enhances the tease in her tone.  

“If you’re leaving in the morning, how about dinner then? My treat. I mean, your last night as a free man before you sign your soul away to the government. You should be partying in style. And I know how to show you a good time.” She winks and he can see the moment when her brain catches up to her mouth. Blinking rapidly, she continues in a rush, “By taking you to the best Greek restaurant in Palo Alto! C’mon, it’s the best, really.”

Dinner is more than he could have asked for so he follows her as she grabs her purse (a bright green thing that must have been a gift from someone, she never would have bought it for herself. Or maybe Stanford-Veronica would. He doesn’t know) and her keys and leads him down the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator.

“Taking the stairs? How old-fashioned of you, Mars.”

Veronica snorts. 

“We always use the elevator going up but we’re not lazy enough to take it down too.”

She twirls her keys in her hand and keeps him mesmerized as she leads him first to her car and then downtown to a small cafe right on the busy main street.

He smiles. She smiles. They stay away from heavy topics like the Navy and Law School and 3 and a half missing years between them that feel more like twice that. 

After dinner she parks back in front of her dorm and he walks her to the door, assuring her that he’ll find his way back to his own car (somehow). 

“Thanks for this Veronica. I know the way we parted terms last time wasn’t exactly ideal, but I hoped, deep down, that you wouldn’t turn me away without at least letting me say goodbye properly this time.”

“Logan, about those years. And the last time we saw each other.”

“Hey. Like I said before. Bygones.”

He looks down at her, still so pretty and blonde and petite and heart achingly Veronica, that he has to kiss her. Even if it’s just her forehead.  “I hope it’s a charmed life for you, Veronica, from here on out. You deserve it.”

And there it is. He can’t make himself say the actual words, but there is his goodbye.

He walks away.

And she lets him.

* * *

 

The next morning, as he's waiting for his plane to board, Logan's phone pings with a new text.

_-You never used the word “goodbye” so I don’t think it counts. Call me when you get back to California and you can try again next time, Maverick._

Attached is a photo of a smiling Veronica wearing her magnifying glass earrings. 

 

 


End file.
